Stating that a legislature was not meant of only the ruling party, DMK General Secretary Prof K. Anbazhagan said majority was only an identity and not whole truth because the present majority would turn into minority tomorrow, the present ruling party would turn into an opposition party tomorrow.
Addressing a public meeting on ‘The peril of democracy in Tamil Nadu Assembly’ at Kancheepuram on August 1, Prof Anbzhagan recalled the words of Arignar Anna about democracy as the best form of governance and said the present rulers were functioning against democratic norms.
Anna also said that victory and defeat were two sides of the same coin and people should not sulk by defeat and become arrogant following victory. Perasiriyar also cited the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that ‘every man and woman had role in democracy, their voice for right should reverberate in the legislature, only if it reverberated like that it was legislature, it was a blessing obtained legally for the public to get opportunity to voice their grievances there’. It was to protect democracy in America in that manner that presidents like Abraham Lincoln came to power there.
He said when Anna and himself were the members of the Assembly in 1957, Anna told the then Speaker Dr. U.Krishna Rao, a physician by profession, that as doctor he would be prescribing nutritious food for weaker children and ordinary food for strong children. “So too, we in the opposition are weak and the ruling party is strong. Hence, the Speaker should be in support of us and make us stronger by being considerate”, Anna said and the then Speaker as well as the ruling Congress party conceded his plea. That was democratic spirit, Perasiryar added.
Though there were only 234 members in the Assembly they represented all the six crore people in the State. The members of the ruling and opposition parties were representatives of the people. He recalled the speech of an opposition party leader in the Lok Sabha in 1967, when he was also an MP, that “To whichever party I may belong to, we, the members of Parliament have right over the whole of India and can speak for the rights of all people living in India. The rights of all are vested with us and we have the duty to protect them”. He said he was referring to this only to drive the point that it was only for certain procedures that there was division between ruling and opposition parties and as far as rights were concerned there was no difference or distinction. All members of the legislature received the same salary, if some of them were ministers they had some concessions. The opposition parties had the right to question the deed of ministers. Whether in Parliament or in Assemblies the first item taken up was ‘Question Hour’, which was the lifeline of the legislature and the right of the public. The question hour was the basic forum to redress the grievances of people and it could not be dispensed with or duration reduced. But such a valuable time was brought to ridicule by this lady (Jayalalitha) and ignored without providing answers.
So also the lady was making a mockery of rule 110 of the House by reading out all and sundry statements every day. According to this rule if any unforeseen urgent work relating to some department had to be carried out involving funds beyond the budget and provision had to be made, this 110 rule would be used to get the approval of the House. But this lady invariably came to the Assembly with ‘110 statement’ and left with ‘111’ (indicating duping).
Perasiriyar cited a few such announcements made by her one of which was “10 lakh new power connections- Chief Minister announces in the Assembly”. Due to power shortage industries in Tirupur, Coimbatore and other place in TN had been facing closure and farmers were not getting power for irrigation. When the situation was such how could 10 lakh new power connections be given? Won’t it take at least one year, was there man power for it and were there people to avail of new power connections, he asked. This was only to hoodwink people in the next elections as one of their achievements. But who would be in the know of the truth, the officials and people like us with information.
Similarly she announced 100 more mini buses to be operated. Already the plying mini buses had been halted for want of repairs and spare parts. Those purchased during the DMK rule had been used without replenishing. Already there were problems and how and when would they operate another 100 mini buses, he asked.
She has announced in August that two engineering colleges would be started in Cuddalore and Shevapet, should not this announcement be made prior to May. When there were reports that the government had not evacuated power generated by wind mills and the wind mill owners were not paid for the power evacuated by the TNEB, Jayalalitha announced that two power sub-stations would be set up in West Mambalam and Porur at a cost of Rs. 338 crore.
In the political name of the lady (Amma) so many schemes were announced. The entrepreneurship scheme started during Kalaignar’s rule was renamed as ‘Amma entrepreneurship scheme’. Had they wanted to get rid of Kalaignar’s name they could have christened it as “CM entrepreneurship scheme”, but everything was named after ‘amma’. In order to please her, their party functionaries would buy if something called ‘Amma beedi’ came to the market. In a lighter vein he said ‘Amma cheroot’ would not be proper because it could not stand the competition of the expertise of the ruling party in ‘suruttal’ (meaning looting). (Laughter)
He said DMK legislators like Stalin, Duraimurugan were well experienced in legislature and administration, they meticulously did their home work before coming to the House and hence when they spoke they were accused of intervening and evicted. As they evicted four time they announced suspension for the entire session. Even during Kalaignar’s rule there were walkout but he did not relish it and asked them to return to the House. Only in the presence of opposition parties should the ruling party reel out its achievements giving place to the opposition to refute the claims of the ruling party. This was the lesson taught by Anna and hence Kalaignar would send ministers to bring back the opposition members. But now this lady thought that the legislature belonged to them.
“Majority alone was not the legislature. It was only an identity and not whole truth. Today’s majority would become minority tomorrow. We were ruling party yesterday and opposition party today. The largest party Congress was ruling party earlier and now it was not even the Opposition party in Parliament. Hence those who respected democracy respected people. All in the House should be respected but the ruling party in Tamil Nadu were treating meanly and evicting traditional parties like not only the DMK, but also the Congress, the CPM and the CPI with the special distinction of being led by D. Pandian (laugher) etc., just because they demanded that the DMK members should be asked to return to the House and participate in the proceedings. The reason for this was that that the lady did not want to hear the voice of the opposition. A legislature should have both ruling and opposition parties, there could be no Leader of the Opposition but there should not be absence of opposition parties. If all were ruling party members in the House it won’t be considered as democratic norm. Hence only to condemn this attitude of not giving due respect to opposition that this meeting was arranged, he said.
He said such a situation of such a big damage to democracy has arisen because those who had scant respect for democracy was seated on the seat of rule, these were the results of this lady occupying the seat of power.
All departments in TN were dishonest, the regime, which included not only ministers but also officials were dishonest, he alleged adding in the last elections the DMK didn’t face such a big downfall not because the people did not support us but because of a systematic fraud at the time of polling. The Tamil Nadu Chief Election Officer promulgated prohibitory orders under section 144 two days prior to polling, prohibiting workers of all political parties except the ruling party from moving out, using which they distributed money to voters door by door without any check. Further to ensure their victory they made a ‘memory manipulation’ in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) by which the votes polled for any party was accounted for the ruling party. This was reported in dailies in the north.
Section 144 prohibitory orders could be promulgated in any tense area but not for the entire State when with the help of the police the ruling party cadre freely moved around distributing money. Thus because of the wrong doing of the election officers along with the police department and the injustice committed by the CEO, the DMK lost so badly, he said.
“We are prepared to accept the victory of anyone getting the support of the people and concede our defeat. But irregularities and atrocity were committed, with the help of officials the present ruling party let loose anarchy which could not but be condemned.” Perasiriyar said.
Giving details of the deterioration of law and order in the State, he said even the police force were worried and concede that they had never witnessed such an anarchy in the State ever before. Hence the government of the day had failed to provide peaceful life to people. Referring to the Maulivakkam building disaster, he said it was because of the deep rooted corruption in administration. Hence the present regime was not trustworthy, he said appealing to people to trust the DMK and entrust the State to the party in their own interest.
District DMK secretary and former Minister T.M.Anbarasan and others also spoke. Later Prof Anbazhagan also addressed a similar meeting at Arkonam in Vellore district presided over by district DMK secretary R. Gandhi.
Addressing a public meeting on ‘The peril of democracy in Tamil Nadu Assembly’ at Kancheepuram on August 1, Prof Anbzhagan recalled the words of Arignar Anna about democracy as the best form of governance and said the present rulers were functioning against democratic norms.
Anna also said that victory and defeat were two sides of the same coin and people should not sulk by defeat and become arrogant following victory. Perasiriyar also cited the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that ‘every man and woman had role in democracy, their voice for right should reverberate in the legislature, only if it reverberated like that it was legislature, it was a blessing obtained legally for the public to get opportunity to voice their grievances there’. It was to protect democracy in America in that manner that presidents like Abraham Lincoln came to power there.
He said when Anna and himself were the members of the Assembly in 1957, Anna told the then Speaker Dr. U.Krishna Rao, a physician by profession, that as doctor he would be prescribing nutritious food for weaker children and ordinary food for strong children. “So too, we in the opposition are weak and the ruling party is strong. Hence, the Speaker should be in support of us and make us stronger by being considerate”, Anna said and the then Speaker as well as the ruling Congress party conceded his plea. That was democratic spirit, Perasiryar added.
Though there were only 234 members in the Assembly they represented all the six crore people in the State. The members of the ruling and opposition parties were representatives of the people. He recalled the speech of an opposition party leader in the Lok Sabha in 1967, when he was also an MP, that “To whichever party I may belong to, we, the members of Parliament have right over the whole of India and can speak for the rights of all people living in India. The rights of all are vested with us and we have the duty to protect them”. He said he was referring to this only to drive the point that it was only for certain procedures that there was division between ruling and opposition parties and as far as rights were concerned there was no difference or distinction. All members of the legislature received the same salary, if some of them were ministers they had some concessions. The opposition parties had the right to question the deed of ministers. Whether in Parliament or in Assemblies the first item taken up was ‘Question Hour’, which was the lifeline of the legislature and the right of the public. The question hour was the basic forum to redress the grievances of people and it could not be dispensed with or duration reduced. But such a valuable time was brought to ridicule by this lady (Jayalalitha) and ignored without providing answers.
So also the lady was making a mockery of rule 110 of the House by reading out all and sundry statements every day. According to this rule if any unforeseen urgent work relating to some department had to be carried out involving funds beyond the budget and provision had to be made, this 110 rule would be used to get the approval of the House. But this lady invariably came to the Assembly with ‘110 statement’ and left with ‘111’ (indicating duping).
Perasiriyar cited a few such announcements made by her one of which was “10 lakh new power connections- Chief Minister announces in the Assembly”. Due to power shortage industries in Tirupur, Coimbatore and other place in TN had been facing closure and farmers were not getting power for irrigation. When the situation was such how could 10 lakh new power connections be given? Won’t it take at least one year, was there man power for it and were there people to avail of new power connections, he asked. This was only to hoodwink people in the next elections as one of their achievements. But who would be in the know of the truth, the officials and people like us with information.
Similarly she announced 100 more mini buses to be operated. Already the plying mini buses had been halted for want of repairs and spare parts. Those purchased during the DMK rule had been used without replenishing. Already there were problems and how and when would they operate another 100 mini buses, he asked.
She has announced in August that two engineering colleges would be started in Cuddalore and Shevapet, should not this announcement be made prior to May. When there were reports that the government had not evacuated power generated by wind mills and the wind mill owners were not paid for the power evacuated by the TNEB, Jayalalitha announced that two power sub-stations would be set up in West Mambalam and Porur at a cost of Rs. 338 crore.
In the political name of the lady (Amma) so many schemes were announced. The entrepreneurship scheme started during Kalaignar’s rule was renamed as ‘Amma entrepreneurship scheme’. Had they wanted to get rid of Kalaignar’s name they could have christened it as “CM entrepreneurship scheme”, but everything was named after ‘amma’. In order to please her, their party functionaries would buy if something called ‘Amma beedi’ came to the market. In a lighter vein he said ‘Amma cheroot’ would not be proper because it could not stand the competition of the expertise of the ruling party in ‘suruttal’ (meaning looting). (Laughter)
He said DMK legislators like Stalin, Duraimurugan were well experienced in legislature and administration, they meticulously did their home work before coming to the House and hence when they spoke they were accused of intervening and evicted. As they evicted four time they announced suspension for the entire session. Even during Kalaignar’s rule there were walkout but he did not relish it and asked them to return to the House. Only in the presence of opposition parties should the ruling party reel out its achievements giving place to the opposition to refute the claims of the ruling party. This was the lesson taught by Anna and hence Kalaignar would send ministers to bring back the opposition members. But now this lady thought that the legislature belonged to them.
“Majority alone was not the legislature. It was only an identity and not whole truth. Today’s majority would become minority tomorrow. We were ruling party yesterday and opposition party today. The largest party Congress was ruling party earlier and now it was not even the Opposition party in Parliament. Hence those who respected democracy respected people. All in the House should be respected but the ruling party in Tamil Nadu were treating meanly and evicting traditional parties like not only the DMK, but also the Congress, the CPM and the CPI with the special distinction of being led by D. Pandian (laugher) etc., just because they demanded that the DMK members should be asked to return to the House and participate in the proceedings. The reason for this was that that the lady did not want to hear the voice of the opposition. A legislature should have both ruling and opposition parties, there could be no Leader of the Opposition but there should not be absence of opposition parties. If all were ruling party members in the House it won’t be considered as democratic norm. Hence only to condemn this attitude of not giving due respect to opposition that this meeting was arranged, he said.
He said such a situation of such a big damage to democracy has arisen because those who had scant respect for democracy was seated on the seat of rule, these were the results of this lady occupying the seat of power.
All departments in TN were dishonest, the regime, which included not only ministers but also officials were dishonest, he alleged adding in the last elections the DMK didn’t face such a big downfall not because the people did not support us but because of a systematic fraud at the time of polling. The Tamil Nadu Chief Election Officer promulgated prohibitory orders under section 144 two days prior to polling, prohibiting workers of all political parties except the ruling party from moving out, using which they distributed money to voters door by door without any check. Further to ensure their victory they made a ‘memory manipulation’ in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) by which the votes polled for any party was accounted for the ruling party. This was reported in dailies in the north.
Section 144 prohibitory orders could be promulgated in any tense area but not for the entire State when with the help of the police the ruling party cadre freely moved around distributing money. Thus because of the wrong doing of the election officers along with the police department and the injustice committed by the CEO, the DMK lost so badly, he said.
“We are prepared to accept the victory of anyone getting the support of the people and concede our defeat. But irregularities and atrocity were committed, with the help of officials the present ruling party let loose anarchy which could not but be condemned.” Perasiriyar said.
Giving details of the deterioration of law and order in the State, he said even the police force were worried and concede that they had never witnessed such an anarchy in the State ever before. Hence the government of the day had failed to provide peaceful life to people. Referring to the Maulivakkam building disaster, he said it was because of the deep rooted corruption in administration. Hence the present regime was not trustworthy, he said appealing to people to trust the DMK and entrust the State to the party in their own interest.
District DMK secretary and former Minister T.M.Anbarasan and others also spoke. Later Prof Anbazhagan also addressed a similar meeting at Arkonam in Vellore district presided over by district DMK secretary R. Gandhi.
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